Israel says to free 400 Palestinian prisoners
Reuters
Date: 06-01-05
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel will free 400 Palestinian prisoners on Thursday in what Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called an attempt to boost moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ahead of a Gaza withdrawal.
Palestinian officials dismissed the long-delayed release as a public relations stunt, complaining that Israel refused to give them a say in who would be freed, and prisoners they most wanted released would stay in jail.
The Israeli army said on Wednesday the mass release stemmed from approval granted earlier this week by the cabinet and reflected "ongoing cooperation with the Palestinian Authority".
Israel freed 500 prisoners in February after Abbas and Sharon announced a ceasefire, but Sharon later suspended the promised release of 400 more, saying Palestinians had not done enough to disarm militants.
None of the prisoners slated for release had been convicted of attacks that killed or injured Israelis, officials said. Many were in jail for belonging to militant groups, possessing weapons or plotting attacks.
The prisoners will be sent home to the West Bank and Gaza Strip through Israeli army checkpoints.
A lawyer representing Israelis who were harmed or had relatives killed in attacks by Palestinian militants said he had filed a court appeal seeking to block the release.
"If they didn't hurt anyone the first time around, does that mean they should be given another chance to do so?" lawyer Zeev Dasberg said.
Sharon has said he wants to bolster Abbas ahead of a pullout from all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank that is slated to begin in August as part of an Israeli plan to "disengage" from conflict with the Palestinians.
PALESTINIAN CRITICISM
The Jewish state is hoping that Abbas, elected to succeed Yasser Arafat on a platform of non-violence, will keep militants from carrying out attacks during the evacuation. Abbas coaxed militants into the shaky truce he agreed with Sharon.
"If this step was aimed at strengthening President Mahmoud Abbas, then it is not enough," said Sofian Abu Zaydeh, Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs.
"It is a unilateral Israeli step ... The Israeli side is still not serious in dealing with us."
Palestinians say Abbas needs larger-scale releases to preserve the ceasefire that has been marred by sporadic violence.
The Islamic militant group Hamas, sworn to Israel's destruction and the biggest rival to Abbas's Fatah party, says continuing the truce is partly contingent on prisoner releases.
The prisoner issue is highly emotive for Palestinians, who see the roughly 8,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails as heroes fighting occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Israeli security officials say arrests have helped break up some militant cells behind suicide bombings and other attacks on Israelis during a 4-1/2-year-old Palestinian uprising.
Palestinians say their priority is to secure the release of long-serving prisoners arrested before 1993 Oslo interim peace accords with Israel, in addition to teenagers, women, the sick and elderly, and political leaders.
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